


the postures of the dead

by goukyorin (sashimisusie)



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Noir, Dunwall Noir, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 22:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashimisusie/pseuds/goukyorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Accidents are for things that have no blame. Emily know what she saw, and what happened that day wasn't an accident.<br/>Collection of short fics that take place in the <a href="http://dunwallnoir.tumblr.com/">Dunwall Noir</a> AU setting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enter, stage right (Emily)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Dylan Thomas’s “All That I Owe the Fellows of the Grave”.

“Miss Emily,” Burrows says with his teeth clenched behind a tight smile, “you didn't see anything, did you?”

Emily has no idea what she saw. That’s not quite right, she thinks. She knows exactly what she saw, but it isn't anything that he wants to hear from her. Better to play the part he expects, and stay alive for a while longer.

The man who killed her mother was a professional. As far as she knows, professionals don’t just leave loose ends hanging, especially not if those loose ends happen to be potential witnesses. She’s still alive, which means they need her for some reason; she just needs to find out why.

“No, I’m afraid I didn't. It all happened so fast,” she says with her voice cracking. She doesn't need to force herself to start crying. Her mother is cooling on the floor with a wrinkled tarp draped over her, and Corvo is probably either dead in the back of an alley or being tortured in ways she can’t even imagine.

He looks away uncomfortably when the tears start running down her face, fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief. A distracted moment, or long enough to let her slip the scrap of fabric clenched in her fist into her pocket.

Emily cries all the way to the car, dabbing her face with the balled-up handkerchief and memorizing the faces of the men she passes. She sniffles loudly, but quietly enough for her to hear snatches of conversation. Unfortunate accident, she hears. Murder, she hears another say.

There’s no such thing as an unfortunate accident. Accidents are for things that have no blame. Write it off as an accident and no one will question it further. Emily knows this was no accident, and it definitely wasn't just a murder.

Her mother was assassinated, and Emily Kaldwin is going to find out why.


	2. Exeunt (Sokolov, Piero and the Outsider)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is discussion about morgue and dead bodies.  
> Originally a series of tweets-turned-reblog fic written for mugumugu's picture [here](http://mugumugu.tumblr.com/post/49095250584/talking-about-noir-au-with-orbitlove-and-it-led).

The sky is already dark and there’s only an hour left before closing when Sokolov gets the call. Damned shame that it wasn't raining outside when he put the phone back down. Five, maybe ten minutes pass before Piero wheels the gurney through the autopsy room door.

Piero makes to leave, but not before Sokolov puts a hand on his shoulder. He hasn't had nearly enough alcohol to deal with this tonight, or the presence of mind to do a thorough job alone.

“You might as well start learning how to do the rest of this,” Sokolov says wearily, ignoring the way that the man’s eyes light up. Stay professional, if not polite. “We’ll weigh in and clean up today, then start the internal examination tomorrow.”

Piero puts his pen to the paper. “Do we have a name for Jane Doe here?”

“Jessamine Kaldwin.”

A nice, rich lady like Jessamine should have died of old age, surrounded by grandchildren and friends. But this is Dunwall, after all, where violence runs high and the grave plots run cheap. Tomorrow morning, she’ll be another data entry taking up a fridge in the Dunwall morgue. But tonight, Anton Sokolov will mourn her as a friend and drink to her life.

He pauses by the light switch. She deserves more than just the darkness but the woman lying isn't Jessamine anymore. Whatever makes her Jessamine is gone already. The religious would say to heaven but really, anywhere is better than here.

Sokolov turns off the main lights, leaving the red security lights on out of habit. No sane person would come steal a body when the computers were worth more. As the doors swing shut for the night, Piero calls to him to hurry up.

No one sees when the shadows begin to peel from the walls.

The shadows take the form of its latest fancy and coalesce in the middle of the dark autopsy room. Human male, with high cheekbones and delicate features, but most importantly, he is someone dead and forgotten. They would call him the Outsider, if there was anyone here to lay eyes upon him. He is the stuff of nightmares and the very best of dreams, when they decide on what to call him at all. He, she, it.

But most of all, he is something or someone from outside the boundaries. An intruder, and now a thief.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” he says to the still corpse, twirling an impossibly-sharp knife in his hand, “This won’t hurt a bit.”

He runs a finger down her cold skin. It’s a familiar sort of cold, like the depths of the lightless sea. “How would you like me to cut your heart out? I could go across from the sternum, then down. Or maybe you’d like me to open you up like one of the whales hanging in the seaside factories. There are just so many choices.”

“I can hear you shouting at me from beyond the veil. But nothing you say matters once you're dead,” he says smiling and stabs down.


End file.
